Penelope's Bed
https://poems.culturing.net/2026/08/29/penelopes-bed/
Odysseus arrives after too much wandering.
At first she does not believe him, although
he has passed over two immortal goddesses
who offered him endless sex without consequences,
as well as a princess whose parents begged him to stay.
He knew where his heart was. She tests him
with questions, and he knows the answer,
the only answer to life's most important question.
He says their bed cannot be moved. He says
that when he built their home, he planted
an olive tree in the earth, to bloom
in their marriage room, and the bed,
built around it, stays rooted, unless
she has chopped it down. Then she knows
who he is. Then she knows who she is,
and embraces him. This is the image.
There will be no other. There will be
none better.
